Some of the area's top blues musicians converged at the Hampton Taphouse last week to wish Hampton's William "MoBetta" Ledbetter a happy 18th birthday.

Predictibly, the surprise party featured lots of house-rockin' live music. "It turned into a community jam," said Bobby "BlackHat" Walters, who served as the unofficial master of ceremonies for the Thursday evening gathering. "We mixed and matched all evening ... We wanted to make sure we gave the kids plenty of time to play. It was a fun night."

The young man of the hour got on stage, both to jam with his mentor Jackie Scott and to blast with his rock band, DFD. Friends of Ledbetter's from the youth blues camp held this summer in Hampton were also on hand.

"It was one of the best surprises I ever had," said the guitarist, a senior at Kecoughtan High School.

Jackie Scott said she's not looking forward to watching the young man fly the coop. "The only thing bad I can say about Ledbetter is that he's leaving and going off to college," she said, laughing. "But he left some good footprints for the other kids to follow. He'll still be inspiring other musicians to continue grow and develop and I bet he'll come back and do some tutoring."

After the main event ended, Ledbetter hung around for a little extra jamming with Mark Hopkins, guitarist with Jackie Scott and the Housewreckers. Ledbetter got to play harmonica with Hopkins, something he had been itching to try. "On Facebook, I told him I wanted to play with him some time," Ledbetter said. "Right before we were leaving, he was like, 'Hold on, let's jam a little bit.' That was awesome."

As far as his future goes, Ledbetter said he's applied to Virginia Tech and North Carolina A&T so far. He plans to major in mechanical engineering. He won't leave music behind, though.

"I'm going to minor in music, hopefully," he said. "Definitely, I'll keep on playing music because I love it to death."